Okay so here’s what happened
Hi. Hey. Hello. Yes I’m alive. No I haven’t fallen off the face of the earth. I’ve just been going through “IT” and honestly wasn’t ready to talk about it until now so here we are.
November 11th before literally the first scrimmage of my junior year, I dislocated my shoulder. Not even a real game, a SCRIMMAGE. The disrespect. 😭
And because my body apparently doesn’t do anything small, it wasn’t just a dislocation. I had something called a Hill-Sachs lesion which is a fancy way of saying a chunk of bone got knocked out of place and my labrum was torn with the guys in the white coats call a Bankhart Lesion. I had to google what a labrum even was.
So yeah. junior season? Gone, just like that.
I’m not going to sit here and pretend I handled it gracefully at first, because I did not. There was a solid stretch where I was basically the team manager which like… not exactly the junior year arc I had in mind lol. Showing up to every practice and every game just to watch, when all I wanted to do was be out there. That’s a special kind of torture honestly. But shoutout to my coaches for noticing when it looked like I felt left out and helping me get included again. And if that wasn’t bad enough, this is my best friend’s senior year. We were supposed to have this whole season together and I had to watch from the bench in a sling the size of a small vehicle. I’m not dramatic, that’s just facts 😭
Surgery was January 2nd, shoutout to Dr. Dickens and everyone at Duke Sports Med because you guys are literally the best and I trust you with my whole shoulder (literally). Recovery has been an experience. did you know sleeping upright for two weeks is a thing people have to do? It’s a thing. It’s not a fun thing. Also washing your hair with one hand? Nobody prepares you for that. I was out here looking like a whole science experiment for a minute 💀
BUT. Plot twist. I’m actually doing really well now.
I’m out of the sling. I got my driving privileges back (freedom), and I’ve been going to PT every week since surgery. My range of motion is coming back, I’m doing strengthening work, and most days I feel like myself again. Some days are still hard ngl. The mental side of this is no joke, there are definitely moments where I’m like, “wait am I actually going to be the same player? Am I going to have to relearn everything? Am I going to flinch every time someone drives baseline near me?”
Those thoughts are real. I’m just not letting them win.
My care team is saying if everything keeps going the way it’s going, I could be back to competing in June or July. which means yeah, I’m probably missing most of the spring and summer AAU circuit and all of track & field, and that part genuinely stings.
But I’ll tell you what, when I do show back up this summer, I am going to be ready. not just like “yeah she’s healthy” ready. like actually locked in, more mature, hungrier than I’ve ever been before. This whole thing taught me something I couldn’t have learned any other way, don’t take a single rep for granted. I used to love basketball. now I’m kind of obsessed with it in a way. Spending my junior year for my school season on the bench helped me see the game in such a different way and that alone has made me grow and idk that might actually be the silver lining in all of this.
Anyway, more updates coming. Thanks for sticking around 🖤 — Ella
